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SpaceX advances reuse efforts as recovery of two boosters nearly complete
Three launches, two recoveries, two coasts
Just over two weeks ago, SpaceX accomplished its most impressive feat of cadence yet, both launching and recovering two separate Falcon 9s in approximately 49 hours.
Two weeks later and two days after conducting a third launch in 13 days, residents of Los Angeles, California and Cape Canaveral, Florida both coincidentally reported that the two recovered boosters from the previous two launches had both gone horizontal and appeared ready for transport. After docking in Port Canaveral for the second time, Core 1029 was seen entering SpaceX’s LC-39A integration facilities on Friday. The booster on the West coast, 1036, was loaded aboard one of the company’s converted Falcon 9-carrying semi-trucks, likely for transport to SpaceX’s Hawthorne manufacturing facilities, or possibly on a direct route to McGregor, Texas for refurbishment and testing.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWQSPOgF67i/
This is exciting for several reasons. Foremost, 1036 is a likely candidate for reuse, and SES-10 sets a firm precedent for this. The first commercial reuse of an orbital-class launch vehicle, Falcon 9’s second stage and SES-10 payload launched on a first stage that had flown five months before during the successful launch of Iridium’s first ten NEXT satellites.
Given the potential impact of failure on the adoption of reuse as a commercial standard, SpaceX likely approached the refurbishment of the vehicle with an end-goal balanced between perfection and realism. The orbit of Iridium’s NEXT constellation is the reason the booster was chosen for the first operational reuse: their low Earth polar orbits require Falcon 9’s first stage to undergo a smaller amount of heating and general hypersonic battering when compared with SpaceX’s more common commercial launches of geostationary satellites.
- The central aluminum grid fin of 1029 features a dramatic lack of several vanes, likely melted off during the intense heat of reentry. Expending older boosters is likely helping SpaceX learn how to preserve Block 5 rockets for multiple high-energy missions. (Reddit, u/thedubya22)
- SpaceX will move to titanium grid fins in the future, first trialed during 1036’s launch of Iridium-2. (SpaceX)
A sound example of the extremes of Falcon 9’s suborbital reentry heating can be found in the recovery of 1029, which launched BulgariaSat-1 to a supersynchronous transfer orbit. Noted before the launch by Musk over his favored medium, 1029’s recovery was expected to be the most energetic yet, and thus success was less than certain. The results of this additional heating were obvious, and keen observers rapidly noted that the most stressed of 1029’s aluminum grid fins appeared to be considerably deformed from the stage’s energetic return to OCISLY, completed melted through in places. Considering the debut of more robust titanium grid fins aboard the launch of Iridium-2 only two days later, the quasi-destruction of one of 1029’s grid fins was somewhat fitting. 1036’s titanium grid fins looked barely worse for wear after a landing that was also deemed aggressive due to Just Read The Instructions having to avoid bad weather just before the landing.
Stirring explorations of the limits of recovery aside, both boosters are now ready to be examined and refurbished ahead of one or even two additional launches. SpaceX’s willingness to use the booster recovered from the launch of Thaicom-8 has already established that the company has a certain level of confidence in the reuse of first stages that have suffered high-velocity recoveries. Thus, 1036 is nearly certain to be reused, and 1029 has a strong chance as well.
- Falcon 9 1029’s lean is decidedly more extreme than the stage that launched Thaicom-8. (SpaceX)
- The aggressive Atlantic Ocean landing of Thaicom-8’s Falcon 9 first stage. (SpaceX)
The hot recovery of 1029 further marked the first use of a remotely-operated recovery robot aboard OCISLY, and could be seen below the leaning first stage as it entered Port Canaveral. It appears that its first use was a success, and the robot will certainly have a busy future of remotely securing first stages after landing. Remote securing and safing will both improve safety for those directly involved in on-ocean recovery, but it is also intended to expedite the process in order to ensure that OCISLY is prepared to recover Falcon 9 as often as possible. SpaceX’s recent cadence accomplishment of three launches in 13 days drives home the reality that weekly launches are readily achievable for the company, so long as there are pads available and payloads to be launched.
Weekly recoveries for an ASDS like OCISLY would be extremely time-sensitive, given the need for at least several days to simply reach the point of landing in the Pacific, and the addition of rapid robotic alternatives for operations aboard the drone ships could make such a goal more achievable. With SpaceX’s land-based landing facilities in perspective, it is easier to imagine a close future with weekly launches and landings of both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, and possibly the propulsive-landing Dragon 2 spacecraft further down the road.

1036 horizontal and ready for transport. (Instagram/Luka Hargett)
A symbiosis of SpaceX fans and those familiar with the metal and chemistry have also led to fans speculating that the now-standard titanium grid fins may develop a subtle, golden patina of oxygenation after many reuses. Nothing could be more picturesquely symbolic of the successes SpaceX has had in their pursuit of reusable rocketry.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
The Boring Company’s new tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units.
The Boring Company just introduced a new piece of hardware, and it runs on parts pulled straight from a Tesla showroom. Liner Truck 3, unveiled in a post from the tunneling company’s official X account, is an all electric vehicle built around Tesla Model 3 battery packs and drive units, purpose built to move concrete tunnel segments to the boring machine face without a single person underground.
Introducing Liner Truck 3 — our latest fully electric tunnel vehicle.
– Tesla Model 3 battery and drive units
– Transports 22,000+ lb of concrete segments to the boring machine
– 28 miles of range
– 12 mph max operating speed
– Remotely piloted from Global OCC in Texas, with… pic.twitter.com/XB7FgSXnpy— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) August 7, 2026
The job itself is unglamorous but critical. Each precast segment run weighs more than 22,000 pounds, roughly the load of a full cement mixer, and Liner Truck 3 hauls that weight repeatedly between the surface staging area and wherever the Prufrock machine happens to be cutting.
The Boring Company said Liner Truck 3 is piloted remotely out of its Global Operations Control Center in Texas, extending the Zero-People-In-Tunnel approach the company has spent years building toward. An earlier version of a ZPIT liner truck was already tested at the company’s Bastrop, Texas research tunnels, and a factory tour released last month showed an employee flying a fully loaded liner truck with a PlayStation controller. Liner Truck 3 looks like the production version of that same idea, cleaned up and pushed into daily use.
The timing lines up with a company digging in more places than it ever has before. The Boring Company now has multiple Prufrock machines active or arriving in Nashville, where Music City Loop construction has been accelerating since February, and its Vegas Loop network keeps adding tunnel mileage on a near monthly basis. Every one of those projects depends on getting concrete segments to the cutting face fast enough to keep the boring machine from idling, which is exactly the bottleneck Liner Truck 3 is designed to remove.
It also reinforces something Tesla owners have watched happen gradually across Musk’s companies: passenger car hardware finding a second life in heavy equipment. Model 3 drive units already move people through the Vegas Loop, and now the same components are hauling concrete underground in Nashville and wherever The Boring Company digs next. Whether that kind of component reuse extends further into TBC’s equipment lineup, or into other Musk owned industrial hardware, is the next thing worth watching.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and SpaceX shrugs off the trading day Wall Street feared most
SpaceX stock did the opposite of what most of Wall Street expected this week, when the day designed to be its most dangerous turned into a rally, and the rally kept going.
Thursday marked the first major lockup expiration since SpaceX’s June IPO, making roughly 911.5 million insider held shares eligible to trade for the first time, more than doubling the company’s public float. Analysts and short sellers had spent weeks bracing for a flood of selling, especially after the stock fell 13 percent following its first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday. Instead, shares rose 6.1 percent Thursday to close at $114.92, and by Friday they were trading near $129, up more than another 12 percent on the day.
SpaceX shorts get warned by Musk ally, echoing Tesla’s early struggles
The setup made the outcome notable. Short interest had climbed to roughly 34 percent of the float heading into earnings, among the highest of any large cap stock, with about 95 percent of available shares to borrow already on loan. CEO Elon Musk warned short sellers twice in the weeks before the lockup, writing on X that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” then following up on the morning of earnings with “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
When the newly unlocked shares hit the market and the selloff never showed up, some of that short position appears to have started unwinding. TipRanks reported that options activity shifted toward bullish strategies like put selling and risk reversals following the rally, with roughly $600 million in options premium trading Thursday alone. Retail buyers also stepped in during the earnings dip, according to Vanda Research.
The fundamentals behind the stock have not changed much in a week. SpaceX’s revenue nearly doubled year over year to $7.8 billion, with Starlink subscribers doubling to 12 million and the company’s AI segment growing 247 percent. What spooked investors on Tuesday was the spending side. Capital expenditures jumped to more than $18 billion for the quarter, up from $2.8 billion a year earlier, with AI investment alone rising from $749 million to $15.8 billion. Wall Street remains split on whether that spending is building infrastructure SpaceX needs or outrunning what the business can currently support, a debate Teslarati has tracked since shares first came under pressure.
None of that resolves the bigger question hanging over the stock. Thursday’s release was only the first of nine staggered lockup tranches, with roughly $800 billion worth of additional shares scheduled to become eligible through October, and Musk’s own stake stays locked until next June. If this week is any indication, the market is treating that supply as something it can absorb rather than something to fear, at least for now.
News
The Boring Company’s newest Vegas Station has a permit quietly waiting behind it
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station, joining an exclusive two resort transit club.
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station Thursday, giving The Boring Company’s underground transit system its northernmost stop yet on the Strip. The station sits at Sahara’s Paradise Road entrance, on the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue, and connects riders to the Las Vegas Convention Center, other Strip resorts on the network and, eventually, Harry Reid International Airport.
The addition makes Sahara the second resort, after Fontainebleau opened its own station in January, to get a stop built at street level rather than tucked into the property itself. Sahara now joins Westgate as the only two Strip resorts offering both a Vegas Loop station and a stop on the Las Vegas Monorail, giving guests two separate ways to get around without leaving the property.
The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville
The bigger news buried in Thursday’s announcement is what comes next. Boring Company has already secured its first permit to tunnel north of Sahara Avenue, extending the network beyond where it currently ends, even though permits to push the Loop toward downtown Las Vegas still haven’t been granted. Crews are also working on a two mile dual tunnel line running from Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, just north of Tropicana Avenue, that Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill has said the company hopes to open in time for November’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Ridership has grown alongside the buildout. The Loop moved roughly 82,000 passengers during CONEXPO in early March, a total the company highlighted on its own X account at the time, and the system has now carried more than 4 million passengers through 11 open stations since it began running in 2021. The airport connector tunnels, meant to give the Loop a direct link to Harry Reid, have slipped past their original first quarter target and remain under construction, with Boring Company director Mike Baier saying that a full opening is still a few months out.
For Sahara, the calculation is straightforward. Convention traffic drives a large share of Loop ridership, and a station at the property’s front door gives conventiongoers one more reason to book rooms on the Strip’s north end instead of closer to the convention center itself.





